


Home is where the Homicide is

by pprfaith



Series: Heist Movies Can Suck It [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Actually A Third of This is Babble, Aged-Up Characters, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Crime, Although it takes a backseat in this one, Awkward Family Reunions, BAMF Stiles, BAMF everyone, Cliffhanger, Criminal Masterminds, Dragon Stiles Stilinski, F/M, Found Family, Genderfluid Stiles, Genderswitching Stiles, Going Home, Heists, How Do I Tag, Humor, Kidnapping, M/M, Magic, Morally Ambiguous Characters, Murder, Non-Human Stiles Stilinski, Scott is a Good Friend, Stiles' Lack of Self Esteem, Team as Family, Violence, criminals, don't know how that happened, stiles babbles, thieves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 06:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13630794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: It's obvious, after Deucalion tried to use Stiles to power his clay stick of destiny, that someone back in Beacon Hills is spilling all kinds of beans about Stiles. This bears investigating. Obviously, it doesn't end well.





	Home is where the Homicide is

**Author's Note:**

> See, I started writing this months ago, and then I knocked myself out of doing anything but sitting on hte couch with a touched up tattoo and a new piercing. I used my forced downtime to finish this.
> 
> It's not quite the fun, fast-paced heist thing the first story was, but I hope you enjoy it anway.
> 
> If you find any of the typos I inevitably missed, please let me know. Thank you.

+

“I think I left the stove on,” Stiles decides and goes for the door handle, heedless of the fact that he is in a moving car. 

Lydia, seated behind him, wedges her phone between ear and shoulder just so she has a free hand with which to smack him upside the head.

“Ouch!”

“Stop whining,” she orders, “No, not you, Danny.”

Peter takes one hand off the wheel long enough to pat Stiles’ thigh sympathetically and offer, “It’ll be fine.” 

It sounds so utterly unconvincing, he could go into telemarketing with it. Still. It’s not like he has a choice now. It’s been two weeks since the whole thing where they blew up a yacht and killed an entire pack of werewolves because they wanted to use Stiles to, like, take over the world and create supernatural paradise, or some such shit, and they need to find out who their leak is. 

Who fed Deucalion the information he needed to piece together what Stiles is? Because he had last names, and he knew about Stiles’ parents and that kind of thing is buried. Buried deep. They made sure of that.

The answer has to be in Beacon Hills and Stiles knows it, knows they have to go there, stat. The only reason they waited this long was that there were various bruises and scrapes that needed to heal before he and Lyds go home to their parents. 

But, but, but. He doesn’t want to. His dad and Lydia’s mother both believe that the two of them run a small private investigation firm, which deals with nothing worse than tax evasion and the occasional angry husband. International crime doesn’t really feature. 

Incidentally, neither do the people they commit said international crime with. People whom they are now bringing with them to Beacon Hills. In order to investigate the supernatural creatures of the town for whoever sold Stiles out to the highest bidder and there are about seventy-three ways this can and will go wrong and Stiles is terrified of his father getting caught in the crossfire almost as much as he is of his dad finding out what his son really does with his life. He’s enough of a disappointment to his dad as is. He doesn’t want to make it worse. 

Peter must smell some of his abject misery, because he uses his free hand to reach up and squeeze Stiles’ neck briefly. His hand is warm and heavy and grounding and Stiles inhales deeply.

On the exhale, he lets his body shift, lets himself melt down into slightly smaller, softer, younger. Peter doesn’t react at all to Stiles turning into his female self, just resettles his hand and lets her be. 

They have an hour left until they reach BH and once they’re there, Stiles is stuck in her male form until they leave again. She’s going to enjoy this freedom while she still has it. 

“Look, Danny,” Lydia suddenly snaps from the backseat, “I need those data sets. Everything you can find out about everyone who visited the agency’s website in the past twelve months. If you’re too scared to dig deep, just send me what you have, I’ll do my own dirty work, but stop hedging.”

Lydia, too, is not very happy with what they’re forced to do. Their plan hinges on far too many variables.

She’s spent pretty much every waking second since Stiles was kidnapped and rescued reinforcing their fake IDs, their legends, their caches and stashes. Anything and everything. It’s why she delegated the preliminary research to Danny, who settled in LA with Jackson after high school.

Jackson, the eternal douche, deals with the financial side of business, Danny does the computer side and together, they’ve turned a little startup into a cutting-edge IT and web security firm. Which, among other things, maintains the site for _Ash Investigations_ , and sometimes does a few less legal side-jobs for them because Danny gets bored on the right side of the law and Jackson is an idiot and still does whatever Lydia tells him to do, a full decade after they broke up for the last time. 

Apparently, Danny suddenly got gun shy, though. Stiles holds her hand out for the phone, snaps her fingers. Lyds slaps at them, huffs. Tells Danny, “Yes, Daniel, I know that someone tried to kill Stiles. That’s why I need that information…. Yes, alright, fine. I said fine!”

She hangs up with a little shrill of frustration that sets the window of their rental SUV vibrating for a second, flings her phone onto the empty seat beside her and stomps her foot. Because some part of Lydia Martin never really grew out of tantrums and screaming fits. 

“What’s up?” Stiles asks, and carefully doesn’t turn to see the little amused grin Peter is inevitably wearing, because then Lyds will notice and pick a fight with him just to make herself feel better. 

“He’s running scared because I told him the guys we’re after are serious.”

“Not actually unreasonable,” Stiles points out. “For normal people, being kidnapped and almost magically drained to death is kind of a big thing.” She cocks her head, contemplatively, “Probably. I think. Peter?”

“And getting shot, and blowing up ships,” Peter provides helpfully.

Lydia rolls her eyes. “I didn’t tell him details. I just needed to get his ass moving.”

“Well, it is moving. Backwards. Well done, Lyds.”

She snarls at her. Stiles rubs at her forehead because she hates everything and shifts her hips because her jeans fit funny when she has hips. She has a few pairs that work for both shapes, but this one isn’t one of them. Peter’s hand makes a reappearance, high on her thigh, stilling her movement. Automatically, her thighs fall open and she holds still. Peter squeezes once, in silent praise. 

“Look, don’t be too mad at Danny. He’s a civilian, these days, and you know you love him, really. We’ll drop you at your mom’s, and you said yourself she should still be at the school, teaching until the late afternoon. That gives you hours to get a head start while Peter and I touch base with Alli and Isaac and meet up with my dad. We’ll feel out the parental unit tonight, and I’ve already set up lunch with Scott tomorrow and I know you’re meeting a few of your former drones, too. After that, we compare notes. It’s fine. We’ll be fine. SOP, regular check-ins, stay armed, it’ll all go well.”

Lydia sends her a dark look. “Okay, okay, it won’t be fine, there’ll probably be murder and mayhem, but we’ll deal with it, together, like we always do. Better?”

Finally, her BBF relaxes. Marginally. 

Stiles’ll take it. 

She turns back to face the front, weaves her fingers into Peter’s and cranks the radio until they hit the city limits and she needs to be he again. 

They takes a little detour through town, ostensibly because Peter has never been here and they’re showing him the sights, such as they are. In fact, they’re mostly aiming to pass the hotel the other two members of their team are holed up in and yep, the two rental bikes Alli and Isaac picked up at the airport are already in the parking lot. All is well. 

Since Natalie Martin moved into a fairly small apartment years ago and usually meets her daughter in various vacations spots around the globe, not here, Lydia will check into the hotel tonight, too, leaving no-one alone for the night. Peter and Stiles are staying at the Sheriff’s. 

So far, so good. 

They drop Lydia at her mother’s building, then head for the house little Stiles, little manic, spastic, fucked-up Stiles grew up in, with a mother going slowly mad and a father marching into a bottle to the rhythm of her illness. 

Peter pulls the SUV into the empty drive and turns off the engine. He makes no move to get out, staring, instead, through the windshield. The siding needs a new coat of paint, the porch is sagging and the flower beds, once bright and colorful are long since overgrown. Stiles planted evergreens in his last year of high school, slow-growing and easy to take care off. They’re still there, overgrown and in dire need of a haircut, but alive. He trims them whenever he comes for is rare visits, but this is California. His visit rate does not match their growth rate. There’s a pot of lilacs at the foot of the stairs, looking a little sad, but fairly well taken care of. It’s new, the hibiscus that used to be there gone.

“This is it, I guess?”

Hands twisting in his lap, Stiles shrugs, bites his lip, and hates himself a little for how insecure five seconds at home are already making him feel. This whole trip….

“Nope,” he blurts. “I made you turn into the wrong driveway. Haha!”

It falls flat. Peter sniffs. “Well, I’ve never been here before, so I wouldn’t know.”

It only sounds a little snippy and makes Stiles cringe even harder. “I didn’t want you to see this,” he tells his boyfriend. Partner, lover, _everything_. Peter deserves the truth. “To see me. Through my dad’s eyes.”

Because when Peter met Stiles, Stiles was already an adult, far from home, he was The Spark, smart and fast and powerful. Here, in this town, in his father’s house, he’s still the boy who held his mother’s hand as she died, the boy who hoisted his father into bed after one drink too many and only had two friends in all the world. Here, he’s a child and Stiles never could stand himself when he was a kid. 

“That would be very kinky,” Peter counters as he opens the driver side door, but doesn’t step out. Not yet. 

Stiles chuckles, weakly, and Peter grabs his chin, forces their eyes to meet. “I love you,” he says, no frills, no nothing. “I have murdered for you, stolen and lied for you and if I have to, I will die for you. I live for you. None of that is going to change, Stiles.”

Stiles laughs, utterly helpless, presses against the wolf’s hand until he has to let go and then forward still, until he can kiss Peter. Then, because he can’t really _say_ things, not the way Peter can, he offers, “Wanna fuck me in my childhood bed before my dad gets home?”

And Peter, bless his equally scarred heart, gets it. 

+

The upstairs is still airing out and both of them are freshly showered by the time the Sheriff comes home. Peter is puttering around the kitchen, magicing up a dinner from what basically amounts to canned goods, condiments and pasta, and Stiles, sitting on one of the counters, watches him fondly. 

The front door slams and all the familiar noises of Stiles’ childhood follow. Shoes being kicked off, the gun belt being undone, the creak of the living room cabinet where the gun safe is hidden, the beeping of the keys (5-7-7-3-9), the heavy crack of the lock. Then, and only then, does his father call, “Kiddo?”

And Stiles grins, widely, and hollers right back, “Kitchen, Dad!”

Peter shoots him an indulgent look and then wipes his hands on a dishtowel and straightens almost imperceptivity, which Stiles will never, ever tell him is cute. They’ve literally murdered people together and the big, bad wolf is still nervous of meeting Stiles’ only parent. 

Stiles gets a long, hard hug, which he returns, before the Sheriff steps back and does a well-hidden double take at the sight of Peter. “Somehow,” he drawls into the ensuing silence, “I didn’t expect this when you told me your boyfriend deals in antiquities.”

Stiles giggles. It’s one of his girl-self sounds and it earns him a strange look from his father, but he just shrugs it off. Dealing with rare (and usually magical) artifacts and books is Peter’s hobby, really, but it serves as a decent cover story and it’s also what it says on his tax forms, so. Yeah. And if the cover doesn’t go very well all that tan muscle, then, well, check your stereotypes. Besides, ‘professional muscle man and occasional assassin’ doesn’t fit on a business card, now does it?

Peter takes it with humor, holding out his hand and offering, “I can dig up my glasses, if it helps?”

Stiles does not whimper at the thought of Peter in glasses. Does not. Instead, he finally scrapes together the two ounces of manners he has never quite managed to shake and says, “Dad, meet Peter Hale, my boyfriend. Peter, meet John Stilinski, my dad.”

They shake on it and the Sheriff comments, “To be honest, I didn’t think I’d ever get to meet you. It’s been what, five years?”

“Almost,” Peter shrugs it off, holds up a finger and goes to stir the sauce because he knows a trap when he sees it. 

“Dad,” Stiles whines. “It’s not like that!”

That earns him an eyeroll. “No? I was starting to think I wouldn’t get to meet him until your wedding day. Parrish suspects that the only reason you’re here now, is that you’re pregnant.”

Which makes Stiles flinch and Peter visibly tense, because technically, he could. Well, she could. But his dad doesn’t know that because his dad doesn’t know about the supernatural and thinks he’s just making jokes, when really, he’s just stepped into a relationship minefield and this was a terrible idea, it was awful, why did Stiles think bringing Peter here would in any way, shape, or form work out? Stashing him with the others at the hotel would have been so much easier. 

Peter saves the day again by asking, “Where are the plates? The pasta’s just about done?”

That gets Stiles moving out of the fog his father’s joke put him into and the idea of a home-cooked meal is enough to set the Sheriff on a different track. For now. 

They set the table to idle chit-chat, sit down, and dig in and for five blissful minutes, Stiles can pretend this isn’t his worst idea ever since that one time he let Lydia drag him for a Brazilian wax. 

Then, halfway through his pasta, the Sheriff puts down his fork and asks, “Kidding aside, why are you here? Because it’s not Thanksgiving or Christmas and you’re jumpy as hell, kid.”

Stiles shrugs, plays it off. “We’re kind of circling the wagons, Lyds and me. Something happened on our last case and the client got… bad. He knew way too much about the both of us,” – really only Stiles, but Stiles does not need his father to go overprotective papawolf – “and that shit’s not kosher. You do not want a disgruntled, freshly divorced husband on your doorstep at three am, or something like that. We work hard to keep our private lives separate from work and this guy obviously has Beacon Hills intel. So we’re really here to feel things out and Peter decided to tag along. Because he wanted to meet you.”

People in this town, people who knew him as a kid, think Stiles can’t lie for shit. Any member of his crew could tell you that the flailing and stuttering is really just a smokescreen, there to get him what he wants. The weird part? Stiles somehow forgot that it works on his dad, too. The man neatly bypasses the actual, relevant information and latches onto the last bit. 

“Well, at least someone does,” he snorts, takes another bite of his food and lets the whole rambling explanation go, despite the holes in it. “So, what are you looking for?”

Stiles shrugs. “Really, at this point, we’re just trying to figure out if anyone’s noticed someone weird hanging around, asking questions.”

“Gee, kid,” is his reply. “You mean I shouldn’t have shown those shady guys in the big, black hats your baby pictures when they approached me randomly in the street?”

Sarcasm. It’s a weapon in this house. Peter indelicately snorts into his hand because yeah, Stiles had to get it from somewhere. 

“Ha, ha. Funny, Dad. Seriously, though, has anything weird or interesting happened recently? In the past… three months or so. Old, familiar faces popping up? Someone tailing your car? Anything?”

The Sheriff rubs at the bridge of his nose. “Stiles, I’m a police officer. I have been for longer than you’ve been alive. I think I would have noticed ‘weird’ or ‘interesting’, especially when it pertains to my only son. I ran into Natalie the other day and the only thing she had to tell me was that Lydia is just as bad in keeping in contact as you are.”

“Imagine though,” Stiles defends, “if I didn’t ask you and it turned out there really was something weird. How stupid do you think we’d both feel then, huh?”

The Sheriff looks, for a long moment, like he wants to stay all kinds of things to that, but then shakes his head and goes back to his pasta.

Well, Stiles thinks, shooting a look at Peter, who is already looking back, that could have gone way better. It also could have gone worse, though. Hey, at least his father isn’t wondering if he needs to arrest his only son, the way he probably actually should. 

+

Because Stiles is secretly a masochist, he schedules his lunch with Scott for eleven on the next day. Basically, he finishes one awkward reunion meal, goes to bed to sleep off the jetlag, get back up, and goes to have another awkward reunion meal. 

And the worst thing? Once lunch is over, Scott is going to go back to his job as a BH deputy, where Stiles’ father is his boss and they are going to talk about Stiles and his weird questions and neither of them is stupid and Stiles doesn’t often regret things, but he does regret killing Deucalion so quickly.

If he’d left the alpha alive to ask him a few pointed questions, his two lives wouldn’t have to collide right now.

Unfortunately, there is a Plan and it requires Asking Questions as Step Two. (The caps were Isaac’s idea. He wanted to contribute, too.)

“Why,” Stiles groans as he slams into the booth across from Scott in what was once their favorite diner on the edge of town, immediately putting his head down on the slightly sticky Formica tabletop “do you take lunch at _eleven_? That’s not noon, that’s morning. People _get up_ at eleven, Scott!”

A snort, then a hand patting his head. “Hi, Stiles, great to see you too, after not visiting for over a year! I’m fine, thanks for asking!”

Stiles raises his head enough to give Scott a baleful glare. “Eleven,” he hisses.

“My shift started at six,” Scott defends. “And I didn’t have breakfast.”

Obviously, Stiles isn’t getting anywhere with his sympathy ploy. He straightens with a sigh and flags down the waitress for coffee. All the coffee. The best, most coffee coffee!

“So,” Scott starts before the coffee even makes it to Stiles’ mouth, because he is evil, “Your dad said you finally brought Peter along? Do I get to meet him, too?”

Don’t groan. Don’t groan. “He’s even less of a morning person than I am. If he ever gets out of bed, I’ll introduce you two? What about you? You got someone?”

Immediately, a dopey grin overtakes Scott’s face. “Yeah,” he sighs, dreamily. 

Stiles sips his coffee and waits for an elaboration. When it doesn’t come after half a minute of staring into the middle distance with a glassy look, he kicks at his friend’s ankle under the table. “Dude, details?”

Scott blinks. “Oh, ehm. Her name’s Kira. Kira Yukimura. She teaches martial arts and she’s a total dork and she’s so beautiful, Stiles.” 

Another sigh. Somehow, Stiles thought Scott would eventually grow out of completely losing the plot when he’s in love, but, alas. 

“Sounds nice. Your mom?”

That jerks Scott out of his day dreaming. “Yeah, sure. She’s fine. Still working at the hospital. She has this casual fling with one of the doctors. We kind of have a don’t ask don’t tell policy about that, because he works in the ER too, and I need to look him in the eye when I do my job, you know? Also, it’s my mom!”

Grimacing, Stiles nods along. “Dude, yeah. Totally. So, listen. This isn’t an entirely altruistic visit.”

“You wanna ask me if I’ve been giving information on you out to random strangers. I know, your dad told me.”

Stiles grits his teeth, only half playful. “I don’t like this information pipeline you’ve got going around me, dude. It’s weird.”

Scott snorts, looking at something over Stiles’ shoulder briefly. “Dude, it’s not weird because you’re generally not here. He’s my boss. And he’s known me forever. Of course we walk. And, like, he gave me a chance when the whole vet thing fell through, okay?”

 _And you weren’t there for that either,_ he doesn’t say. And Stiles doesn’t answer, _I didn’t want to bring my particular brand of fucked-up down on the heads of the people I love_ , so there’s that. 

He’s aware that Scott has never really forgiven the hurt Stiles and Lydia caused when they more or less abandoned him after graduation. Stiles knows that Scott didn’t really have any other friends and they just ran. They had their reasons, good reasons, but they could never tell Scotty that. 

So Stiles should really shut up about the ways the people he left behind deal with his absence. 

“Touché,” he offers, one hand up in supplication. “Sorry. But I’m not just asking about random strangers. Could have been anyone, really. Please, Scott.”

To his credit, Scott actually does think about it for a minute before shaking his head. “Sorry. There was nothing. I mean, old Mrs. Keagan asked about you the other day, but she’s been doing that for ten years. No clue why she likes you so much to be honest. You always hid her garden gnomes.”

Stiles grins at the memory. “And she found them and then got to yell at me. It was a game, Scotty. The old broad gets bored.”

The waitress comes back then and Stiles is finally awake enough to register that he knows that shy grin and that mane of blonde hair. “Oh, hey, Erica! I didn’t realize it was you, sorry. How are you?” 

She smiles the same way she did in high school, but unlike back then, she doesn’t blush and stutter anymore when he looks at her. Improvement! 

“I’m okay. What about you? Prodigal son returning?”

Of course, this diner feeds half the police force in town, so she probably knows all the best gossip. “Visiting,” he corrects. “My dad sticking to his diet?”

She quirks one corner of her mouth into a smirk. “That would be telling, wouldn’t it? Now, what’s for lunch?”

“You still do all day breakfast? Because I could murder for a stack of pancakes.”

“Sure do, any sides?”

“Nah, thanks. A glass of OJ, though, please. And more of this bitter, bitter goodness, yeah?”

She chuckles, nods, and disappears. Stiles watches her go. “She seems… happier than she was at school.”

Scott rolls his eyes. “Dude, it’s been a decade. None of us are the way we were in school.”

True. Still. “I meant her epilepsy. That didn’t go away, did it?”

“Oh, no. But I guess she has better meds now, and she’s dating Boyd, remember him? Yeah. So things turned out good for her, I guess.”

Stiles just nods, because staying in his home town, dating someone he’s known since kindergarten and working a dead-end, low wage job? That’s his concept of hell and he never understood how some people can just be content with so little, when they could reach for the stars. Stiles has traveled the world, he has swam the oceans, stolen priceless artifacts, killed evil men and rabid monsters. He’s risked his life and he’s been hurt and he came out stronger. He’s rediscovered lost magics and fallen in love with a train wreck of a werewolf. He’s done so much in the past decade and he’s not nearly finished and these people, this town, it all seems so small to him now. 

Like an outgrown shoe, Lydia said, the one time they talked about going home, years ago. “We wouldn’t fit anymore.”

He carefully doesn’t let any of that show on his face, though, as Erica brings him his refill and he turns back to Scott, “So, tell me about - Kira, was it? What’s she like?”

+

“Nothing,” Stiles grunts as he slams into the hotel suite Isaac, Alli and Lyds share, dropping onto the nearest flat surface, which happens to be a table, dramatically. 

He flops backwards, hits his head on the hard tabletop and growls. “Nothing, nothing and, oh, yeah, nothing.”

He spent an hour grilling Scott and then most of the afternoon toddling along old paths, striking up conversations with people he used to know, a lifetime ago. Just generally stirring shit up and seeing if anyone got twitchy. It was boring and frustrating because, oh yeah, _no-one got twitchy_.

Peter appears suddenly, patting him on the head consolingly. “There, there,” he offers, because he is a dick and Stiles has no idea why he loves him. “Now get off the research, dear.”

Experimentally, Stiles wiggles his butt. There’s a crinkling sound. Yeah, he’s definitely lying on research. With another grunt, he rolls off the table and flops onto Peter instead. 

“I hate it here,” Stiles mutters into a very lovely collarbone. “I hate this town and I hate lying to my dad and I hate that everyone here looks at me like I’m a bad person for ever leaving and I hate that I hate it, because I should be above small town gossip drones and I wanna go home. Can’t we just go home?”

There’s movement and then Peter sits down and hauls Stiles properly into his lap. “We’ll go home,” he says, quietly, no longer mocking. “As soon as we know who’s after you, we’ll go home, Stiles.”

There’s a third hand on his back, small and always a little cold. “I know how you feel,” Lydia offers. “It’s like-“

“A shoe that doesn’t fit anymore,” Stiles finishes for her. “But it’s also judging you, and you know you should be over that shoe, but it’s still just… there, you know?” he squints past Peter’s shoulder and randomly meets Isaac’s gaze. “That got away from me.”

He gets a raised eyebrow. “You think? Anyway, while you were wallowing in your past, Alli and I actually got shit done.”

“You mean besides trailing me in the diner?”

“Yes, besides that. Also, the waitress was hot.” That earns Isaac an elbow in the ribs. He wheezes. Allison, in her usual outfit of leggings and tight shirt, sits on the arm of his chair, all pretzel-ed up because she is secretly a Russian gymnast or something. How the hell she balances it a mystery to Stiles. 

“We swept John’s, Natalie’s and Scott’s places for bugs and cameras, checked the school’s computer system for recent activity on your old files, and made noisy nuisances of yourselves at the library. Also, Isaac stole this necklace for me. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

She flips up her hair with one hand, the other one trailing over the delicate golden chain with a small, diamond studded infinity symbol dangling right between her collarbones. Stiles does not do either of them the disservice of asking if they got away clean. They’re all professionals here. Stealing a necklace that’s probably barely over a thousand dollars is the kind of thing they do for fun before their first cup of coffee in the morning.

But, “Don’t wear it around my dad, yeah? Or Scott.”

Alli flicks her fingers at Lydia, who promptly smacks Stiles upside the head.

“Ouch! Meanie!”

Isaac coughs into his hand. “But do you feel better now?” he asks, drolly, like he can’t tell through packbonds and years of exposure that yes, Stiles is already feeling better. Pack always makes him better. 

It’s just that this time, he was sad because there are people here that he loves, people who should be pack, but aren’t. For Peter, pack is family. For the others, pack is pretty much all they have. Lydia has distant parents (her mother tries, but there are decades of benevolent neglect there), Allison has her father. But Stiles is the only one who has real family, outside of pack, a father he was once close to, a best friend he still adores. It’s… weird. Not usually, because usually, they’re on another coast, family and pack clearly separate, but right now? He sneezes.

So does Allison. Isaac coughs again. 

“Guys?” he asks, slowly. “Does anyone else feel an uncomfortable itching in their throat?” 

It’s kind of hot. Scorching, actually. It feels like he swallowed fire, to be honest. Like… like… Allison drops first, closely follows by Lydia, who hits her head on the way down. Isaac. Peter growls, grabs Stiles tighter and then the lights go out for them, too.

Fucking finally.

+

+

+

Stiles wakes a) cold, b) cranky, c) with a sore throat and d) on the ground. All of which basically spells out _kidnapped_ in huge, _huge_ neon letters, so he keeps his breathing even and listens. 

There’s rattling off to one side, like chains and chain link fences, along with the low hum of electricity, which is such a cliché, but hey, at least he knows where his wolves went. Breathing a little further toward his center. Three people. Four? Too many too be sure, but more than two. 

Conclusion: the gang’s all together, plus a special guest star, maybe two. Who might also be their mystery man. Or woman. Stiles isn’t being heteronormative here. Also, why isn’t he chained up? He’s assuming they got kidnapped by whoever baited them back to Beacon Hills, not someone else, because even his luck isn’t that shitty. That means they know what he is and what he can do. So why isn’t he wrapped in, like, half a ton of steel chains?

He cracks one eye open.

Shit. Containment circle. Small one, too. The resistance he can feel against his feet and back isn’t a wall, like he assumed, but the magical barrier he is trapped in, barely three feet across. Shiiiiit. “Is that gold? I mean, actual, physical gold? Gold dust? That shit’s way too Tori Amos for me.” He rambles on as he tries to get his bearings, adjust to the situation at hand and try to surreptitiously push his _otherness_ against the circle to look for a flaw of some sort. A weakness. There’s nothing there. “Also, kudos, dude, kudos. Gold circle. A plus.”

Because really, it took stealing two million bucks worth of jewelry and playing around with it afterwards for Stiles to figure out that the whole gold = dragon hoard is really just a ploy to hide the fact that actually, gold = dragon weakness. “Makes me feel all special.”

“Yeah, not just you,” Isaac snarks right back, because Isaac is Stiles’ snark buddy in all situations potentially lethal. Seriously. It’s like they don’t even gain any traction until their chances of survival drop below twenty percent and everyone else is having Serious Face. It’s awesome. Stiles sits up, knees drawn in tight, because the circle is really pretty damn small. How rude. 

And yep, there are the wolves, shirts gone, chained to a large section of chain link fence, which is in turn held up by a pulley system on the ceiling, electricity continuously sending small tremors through their bodies. Both their eyes glow murderous blue, but they can’t shift beyond that. The whole construct is surrounded by a circle of mountain ash. 

“Well, someone’s paranoid,” Stiles mutters, mostly to himself. His fingers go a-wandering, find the gold dust and immediately start burning like a hundred bee stings. Ouch. He pulls them back and freaking sits on them. 

About ten feet away from the Wolfie Torture Corner are three chairs. Alli is chained to one with nylon rope and a lot of duct tape. Lydia is next to her, equally bound, but in a fetching cold iron collar with runes etched all alone its circumference. Stiles is just spit balling here, but he’s pretty sure that thing is made specifically to contain a banshee’s voice. It also clashes horribly with Lydia’s outfit and looks like it’s causing her some discomfort. It’s about an inch thick, pressing onto her shoulders and collarbones. He can already see bruises forming around it, almost like it’s heavier than just iron could be. Yeah, there’s definitely some heavy-duty (pun!) containment woven into that thing. 

Which shouldn’t be a problem, because his strawberry goddess is going to kill whoever put that thing on her with the power of her glare alone. Youch. 

It’s the third chair, though, and its occupant, that’s just about giving Stiles a heart attack. 

It’s Scott. 

Scott, still in his uniform, with his temple bloody and his face streaked. Obviously, he didn’t get knocked out gently, but beaten unconscious and dragged here. Into this mess. Into Stiles’ mess. 

Scott doesn’t even know about the goddamn supernatural, why the fuck is he here?!

“Lyds? Can you talk at all?”

She turns her glare on him for a second, then nods and rasps, “Barely.”

“You’re closest to him. Is he breathing?” Because Stiles is aware that he’s a bad friend, that he’s barely kept up the minimum required contact over the past decade that he wasn’t there for Scott _at all_ but if Scotty is dead, there’s going to be hell to pay. Literally. From both of them, because Lydia might not love Scott the way Stiles does, but she does love him. He’s her friend, too, or at least he was. If Scott is dead - 

Stiles has already burned one man to death with his bare hands. He has no problem doing it again. 

Lydia listens intently for a moment, then nods again. Before Stiles can open his mouth to ask his next question, she shakes her head. “The collar is blocking all my powers. I don’t know.”

If anyone is going to die, and if so, who. 

Well, shit. Having a death list always makes stuff so much easier. 

He wants to ask if the others are okay, if there are any injuries, how strong the current running through Peter and Isaac is, but he doesn’t. No weakness. He turns his gaze away from his pack, toward the far corner. Dark corner.

Notices, for the first time, the space they’re in. Wide open. Hard concrete with mysterious stains. Empty warehouse. So cliché. Stiles has committed capital crimes in fourteen countries and he has never resorted to abandoned warehouses. 

Well. There was that one time in Prague, but that was also the only time they let Isaac plan a job, so. 

Beside the various trappings and the torture corner, the only other thing Stiles can make out is a table at the far back, with a table cloth and candles on it. They’ve either been kidnapped for a candlelit dinner or – yeah. It’s probably some kind of evil magic ritual. Time to start getting out of here. 

He shifts from his ass onto his knees, then onto his feet, stands in the circle, dead-center. It’s not wide enough for him to spread his arms. Not very Geneva Convention, is it? He still makes a show of stretching, obnoxiously yawning, groaning. _Good morning, Vietnam!_

“Well,” he asks, eventually, when his eyes have finally found the telltale glint of someone in the dark, to the left of the makeshift altar, almost up against the wall. Shiny shoes, a belt buckle, a hint of movement. People always forget that for all his flailing and babbling, Stiles is a predator, too. “Are you going to give us your spiel? Or are we going to die of old age?”

Two things happen at once. First, Scott groans, comes to, and freezes, blinking blurrily against the tableau in front of him, which is a whole bunch of people – only some of which he knows – trussed up like something out of a Criminal Minds episode and Stiles seemingly trapped by sparkly dust. 

The second thing that happens is Alan Deaton, strolling out of the darkness with a mild-mannered smile on his face and his hands in his pockets, like he’s out for a leisurely walk and just happened to stumble into this mess, except, you know, no surprise and that comparison got away from Stiles. He might still be woozy from the knock-out gas. 

But the point stands.

_What the fuck?_

Stiles has the sudden, overwhelming urge to borrow a page out of the Hale playbook and rip the man’s throat out on principle. With his teeth. 

He knows better than to let it show on his face, though, talks over the beginnings of Scott asking confused, quiet questions. “Dude, about time. I mean, I know I was the last one to wake up, you really got me good. What was that? Some sort of gas, with wolfsbane and gold dust mixed in? Nasty. Anyway, the others have been awake for a while, I guess, so you were totally missing out on prime villain monologue time. Shame on you, doc.”

He grins, bright and full of teeth and a hefty dose of _fuck you_.

Deaton seems as impressed by Stiles as he always has, which is to say he doesn’t even blink. The man’s like goddamn magical Teflon, really. Stiles has always had this indomitable urge to just find a pointy object and poke the man with it until he reacts. 

Hey, maybe tonight, that pointy object can be his claws and instead of scream he can make the man die! Weeee!

“I thought I’d wait for the guest of honor to join us. After all, Mr. Stilinski, this is all for you.” Cool as a goddamn cucumber. His behavior might actually be more unsettling than the whole kidnapping shtick. Ranting and raving madmen are much easier to deal with, in Stiles’ humble opinion. They get angry so much quicker.

Stiles rolls his eyes, hip-shot in his tiny prison and gives his most obnoxious smirk and grapples for the first best subject he can think of to stall. “Yeah, thanks, we figured. Just, why now? I mean, you’ve known me for, what, fifteen years? And you never showed any interest before now. So what changed?”

Because if Deaton wanted Stiles, he would have had a much, much easier time of it when Stiles was sixteen, desperate and pretty much alone. Hell, Stiles would have probably thanked the man, back then. But nothing. Instead, after an entire decade of nothing, there’s this convoluted, involved plot to bring him back home and kidnap him. 

Why?

It’s quick, just a flicker, but Deaton shoots a reproachful look toward Scott, who is still figuring things out, still sort of gaping and watching and trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle he’s never seen before. Poor mite. 

Stiles feels the sudden urge to laugh. Not at Scott, but at that look, that brief, old anger on the good vet’s face. “Oh, oh,” he chuckles with realization, snaps his fingers, claps his hands once, loud and flashy and distracting. _Fantastic_. “Oh, you did! That’s why…,” he licks his lips. “It never made sense to me, you know? I mean, Scott was good with animals, always, but you kept making him all these promises about making him a partner, working together, and he just never had the grades for that. Not by far. And I never got why you kept feeding the poor kid dreams he’d never achieve, you know, kept insisting that the clinic was the best place for him.

“Except,” and here he lets his voice go hard, lets it go cold, “except it was never about Scott, was it? You just needed someone to pump for intel on me. And who better than my dopey best friend?”

“Hey!”

“Sorry, Scotty,” Stiles waves a hand. Later. He’s on a roll now and Deaton is all eyes on Stiles and that’s just how he likes it. “And Scott told you all kinds of things, didn’t he, and you tried to use them to lure me in. That’s why you kept throwing crumbs at me when Lyds and I were practically begging you to help us with Matt, with the Kanima and all that shit. You were trying to bait me. But oh, oh, this is gold, this is, I love this. You followed the instructions on how to reel me in given to you by a kid who believed in Santa until we were twelve!

“What did he tell you? Stiles likes mysteries? Stiles likes figuring things out for himself? Stiles is clever? And you ---- oh, oh, god this is fantastic.” He snaps his fingers again, stomps his feet, is loud, is distracting, is a goddamn pain in the ass.

“You believed him, never realizing that Scott only ever saw what I let him see, because Scott was my precious person, my one good thing and I never let him see, not ever. Scott didn’t know that I hate nothing more than an authority figure, that I have trust issues a mile wide, that I’m just generally not a good person, that I’m a compulsive liar and would have never come to you for clarification. That I’d just run with the few crumbs you gave me and do my own shit with it, just to spite you, just to prove I could. That I-“ he trails off. There are some things Deaton doesn’t need to know. Even now. Especially now. 

“And then Lyds and I ran out of this town like our asses were on fire and it took you until now to find us again, didn’t it?”

“You hid very well, considering how extraordinary you really are, Stiles,” Deaton agrees with a shallow smile, like Stiles’ entire tirade didn’t even register. Just a child making noises with his mouth. He even has his hands folded in front of his stomach, perfectly collected, like he’s looking at a fucking painting. Perfectly serene. Stiles wants to _gouge_.

“So you found me, and you sent Deucalion after me with his Dildo of Doom and his plan for nutso utopia and just enough information to make me run home, is that it?” He makes a derisive noise.

“Did you think we didn’t know?” Lydia asks, filling in the silence, his perfect partner in crime, always, filling in his gaps. They’ve been playing off each other for most of their lives and there’s not a look exchanged, not a cue given, but she knows, oh, she knows. “That we’d come skidding in blind and leave ourselves wide open?”

She coughs, the collar obviously hurting her, but her smile has razorblades in in anyway. 

Stiles beams at the vet. “Sorry to disappoint you, but you really weren’t that hard to figure out. Deucalion was never here, and neither were his people, so the intel had to find him, which means intent. And oh, you should see the list of spells we cast, down and dirty, blood magic and ritual, to separate ourselves from who we were in this town. No-one who doesn’t have prior knowledge can be aware of it. Their attention just literally slides off those pesky little details like last names and origins. You’d be amazed, doc. We did really well with that spell. It’s all Harry Potter up in there like you wouldn’t believe. Notice Me Not is the fucking bomb! We’re Unplottable! We’re under fucking Fidelus! So we had intent and someone who already knew and that leaves only you, doesn’t it? No-one else in this shithole of a town ever knew the first thing about us.”

Stiles pauses, for dramatic effect, to listen, to check that Peter and Isaac are holding up, that Scott is off to one side, that Alli and Lyds are fine. He pauses and he checks because in a minute he won’t be able to anymore. Not without giving himself away. 

Then, savagely, he demands, “So what the fuck makes you think we didn’t see you coming from a mile off?”

“And yet,” Deaton points out, still smiling, still calm, voice still even, “you are here, chained and trapped and at my mercy.”

Stiles flaps a hand. Details. Dismisses everything. Curls his lips, superior, cocky. And Amy from drama club always said he can’t act. 

“Your wolves are neutered, your banshee collared, your human chained and you, Stiles, are trapped in a circle of gold. Whatever you plan was, it failed.”

They’re always so arrogant, Stiles thinks, with the bitter humor of his female self. Powerful men. Always so sure they have everything under control, that they are the smartest person in the room. 

And it breaks their necks every time. Well, he says ‘it’, but he really means ‘they’. Him and Lydia and Allison, Isaac and Peter. All of them.

For now though, he just shrugs. “It’s a misdirect,” he offers. Adds, “Yeah, and why is that, anyway? I mean, why? All of it. _Why_?”

The mad druid (darach) nods, like Stiles is asking a really good question. Maybe he’ll give Stiles a cookie? A gold star? “In short? You are too powerful.”

Erm. What?

He cocks his head to one side, considering. “Are you high?”

Because Stiles is… many things. Loud. Mouthy. Awesome. Deadly. But powerful? Yes, he can cast certain spells pretty well, but that’s just… specific ones. Physically, he’s no more dangerous than a werewolf. Less so, really. 

Too powerful to, what, live? Walk free? 

He can almost hear Peter drawling, “Your lack of self-esteem is showing, Stiles,” although, in this case, Stiles thinks being bad at something is actually the goal because being good apparently get homicidal druids set on you and also, he totally lost his train of thought. 

He’s too powerful. Presumably, since Deaton has been badly trying to entrap him since he was a kid, he was too powerful then, too. So it’s… something inherent. His mere existence. Being what he is, halfblood dragon. That in itself has power. How? How? How? How?

“Quite the contrary, Stiles. Do you remember what I once told you about druids?”

He’s being quizzed now? Seriously?

He risks a look toward the girls and Scott. Again. One final time. The girls are staring at Deaton like they’re imagining what his insides look like. Scott is switching it up between Stiles and Deaton. The half-naked werewolf torture show is out of his line of sight. He’s keeping his mouth shut, taking it all in, not asking questions. Listening. Being a cop has done him good. Stiles fears getting out of this alive, because Scott is going to rip him a new one.

Focuses on the more imminent threat instead. “Keepers of balance, tree fuckers, chanting in the forest, blah, blah. Yes. So?”

That fucking smile turns tight for a second. Stiles awards himself points and mentally counts down from sixty. Has it been ten minutes, yet? How long is this going to take? Being trapped and about to be killed (???) always seems forever, but he’s probably only been awake for a few minutes, rapid fire babbling most of the time, can’t even remember everything he’s said. It’s survival mode, really. Be bright, be distracting, ask as many questions as you can, try to piece it all together afterwards. 

Deaton, for all that he’s lacking in the raving madman department, is, as always, stupidly in love with his own voice. He talks far too easily, far too willingly. Hasn’t he ever read the Evil Overlord List?

“You are a spark, Stiles, a halfblood, yes, but you still carry old blood in you, old and powerful. Your ancestors were gods once, Old Ones in their own right. Your mere existence threatens the balance I have sworn to uphold. It is my duty to neutralize creatures such as you and others, creatures with the power to tip the balance either way.”

Other… “Dragons? Other dragons? Sparks?”

Because Stiles has searched, high and low, and never, in the half decade he has been looking, as he even found another like him, even halfblood, diluted. 

Deaton shrugs prosaically. “There aren’t many left. But others breed. Things from the dark and the deep, from the space between the stars and the heart of the world.”

“Poetic,” Stiles counters, gaze drawn to – there.

A flicker in the darkness behind Deaton’s back. A distant click of claws on concrete. Something moving. Stiles half hopes it’s come to rip the doc’s throat out, but he half raises his left hand and the… thing comes to a halt right beneath it, like a pet called to heel. 

It’s… not solid. Shadow, shape, something in between, made of teeth and claws and bright golden eyes. Lydia gasps like there is something stuck in her throat, a scream lodged behind the power of the collar, and Stiles feels a shiver, because when a banshee screams at the mere sight of something, you know it’s bad. 

“This here,” Deaton continues his explanation, “is a nogitsune. It’s older than our civilization, a creature of darkness, of void, where you are fire and light, Stiles, and it, too, was a threat to the balance.”

“And you didn’t kill it?”

“No, of course not.”

Obviously. Stiles has no idea if it’s the calm serenity Deaton is displaying along with his batshit insane mutterings, or just the fact that he’s treating a demon like a pet, but Stiles is starting to seriously freak out here. Straight up murder he can deal with, but this? Deaton is so fucking _calm_.

“An absence is just as damaging to the balance as a presence. Your death would be no less dangerous than your life, Stiles. Balance is not the absence of things.” His hand settles on what, in an animal, might pass for a scruff on the nogitsune’s neck. As it is, it looks like he’s lowering his hand into liquid tar. There is even a quiet kind of hiss, almost like a bubble bursting. 

The monster’s eyes grow brighter and Stiles can’t be sure, of course he can’t, the thing is made out of blackness coiled into something very vaguely vulpine, but he thinks he can see hatred on its narrow, mobile face. 

Nogitsune, that’s a kind of kitsune, isn’t it? Elemental creature. They can live forever, he remembers. Just like his kind. Just like dragons. Old and rare and hunted. Stiles practically fell into the vet’s lap, but how the fuck did he find and trap a creature like that?

“Take this one. It was bound into the nemeton almost a century ago, but it still affected the balance. Its mere presence poisoned one of the most powerful keepers of balance on this continent. So I pulled it out and I bound it to my will instead, the will of a druid sworn to balance.”

Somehow, Stiles is severely regretting making Deaton do the villain monologue. He feels a little nauseated at what he’s pretty sure is coming.

“Is that what you plan to do to me? Turn me into a slave?”

There is a low, low growl coming from Peter, almost too deep to hear. Stiles can feel it rattling in his very bones, even inside the circle. 

“I wanted you to come willingly, Stiles. I tried. You cannot blame me for what I must do now.”

Right. The failed seduction of teenage Stiles with vague promises and a few books. If he’d come back for more, if Deaton’s shoddy plan had worked, would he have managed to convince Stiles of his plans? Slowly poison him with his psychosis? Would Stiles have fallen for it, let himself be chained for what Deaton thinks is balance? He’d like to think the answer’s no, but he was so confused back then, so lost and hungry for any kind of attention. It might have worked. Or maybe it wouldn’t have and they would have ended up here, only a decade earlier, Stiles trapped and unwillingly bound. 

Maybe, maybe. He pushes the thought aside. It doesn’t help. He doesn’t need it. He just needs to keep the fucker talking a little more. Just a few more moments. It’s got to be about ten minutes now, doesn’t it?

Deaton, oblivious, just keeps talking in his strange, lilting monotone. He sounds almost gentle. Kind. “The ritual will bind you to me and neutralize you. The balance will be kept. Must be kept. I’m sure, in time, you’ll see.”

Really regretting the necessity of letting the man talk. There is something terrifying about a calm and collected madman. It implies a kind of conviction that is utterly unshakable. Stiles likes the loudly insane ones better. 

(Just look at his boyfriend.)

To his left, there is a tiny ripping sound. Like, maybe, the tearing of duct tape. 

“So you used Duke to check if I was aware of what I am, finally, and to lure me back here. Test my strength, lure me back here, bind me.”

Deaton nods along. 

“Remember when I said it was a misdirect?” Stiles asks, out of the blue, changing tracks completely. 

“What was?”

“Exactly. Two omega wolves, a banshee, a hunter, a spark. You got us all individually. You exploited our weaknesses.” He shrugs. What can you do?

“But we’re not and the plan didn’t fail.”

“Not what, Stiles?” That’s Scott, speaking up for the first time, and bless him for giving Stiles the one-liner he needs to play off of. 

Stiles bows mockingly, as far as the circle allows. “The plan didn’t fail because we’re not two omegas, a banshee, a hunter and a spark.” He lets his mocking expression melt into something else, something unafraid, something dark. Ugly, maybe. He’s never checked. “We’re a pack.”

Allison explodes into motion without any sort of warning, hands free. 

She rips herself loose from the chair with a cry of fury, grabs it and hurtles it, full throttle, into the car battery Peter and Isaac are hooked to, ripping out the cables connecting them. While she moves, Lydia spreads her knees as far as she can, giving Alli’s foot a place to land on the seat of her chair as she simultaneously kicks Lydia backwards through the mountain ash line around the wolves and launches herself sideways to slap a hand through the gold circle trapping Stiles. 

Stiles, already crouched for movement, leaps out of the trap at the same time Isaac and Peter rip the construction they’re chained to to shreds. Isaac, Stiles knows without taking his eyes off of Deaton and his pet, is freeing Lydia, while Peter throws himself over where Alli is still working to regain her footing, and lands in front of her in full beta shift, right next to Stiles, ready to leap. 

A second after that, a metallic shriek is only barely audible over the shrill cry of a banshee freed and then Isaac and Alli are there, too, ready to face Deaton, while Lydia grabs Scott and drags him out of the line of fire. 

It all happens so fast that the druid doesn’t even have a chance to react, no more than three seconds for all of it, like they practiced it, like it was choreographed. It wasn’t. It never is. But there are no chains Alli can’t slip, given enough time, and there’s no enemy Stiles can’t talk into knots, and with the supernatural traps broken – well. 

“Surprise,” Stiles drawls, giddy with adrenaline already, waving his hands. Jazz fingers. Well. Jazz claws. They’re long and dark and shimmer strangely in the dim overhead lights and Stiles is going to sink them into Deaton’s throat and rip it out. 

Deaton is still calm, though, still with that little half smile on his face and that is not normal, Jesus fuck. He makes a tutting noise even as Lydia starts ripping into the chain link fence, throwing Alli the first bit of steel pipe she gets loose, keeping the second for herself. Presumably. Stiles isn’t taking his eyes off Creeper McCreep for a second.

“That was not very nice,” Deaton says and _is he fucking serious_ , Stiles is so freaked out by this guy, and then he raises his hand, just a little, and the nogitsune shoots out from under it like lightning. 

Well. Fuck.

Stiles and Peter lunge apart within the space of a heartbeat, Isaac grabbing Alli to haul her sideways as well. They all come up more or less elegantly just as the nogitsune turns on a dime and leaps at their huntress, who dodges and brings her pipe down for a glancing blow that… goes right through the shadow-and-tar body.

Double fuck.

Isaac, enraged, gives a short howl and throws himself at it, claws first. For a moment, it seems he hits something, then he loses purchase and goes sailing right over it. 

Lydia is there, suddenly, at the edge of the brawl, palms up, mouth open, unleashing a scream that sends the nogitsune skidding sideways long enough for Isaac and Alli to get their footing back. Scott’s beside Lydia, pipe of his own in hand, but Stiles thanks his lucky stars that his human friend makes no move to join the fight. 

Instead the wolves leap simultaneously, claws gouging at the fox’ flanks. Stiles can’t tell if they do much damage, but they definitely hit _something_ this time, so he takes his own shot. His claws are longer, slimmer than a wolf’s and he uses them sink in and _twist_.

The fox makes a sound, part laughter part bark, twisting on itself, razor sharp fangs sinking into Stiles’ forearm and suddenly – 

He thinks he’s gone blind, for a moment, because everything is so bright. 

Then he blinks and realizes that he’s elsewhere. A white room. Everything’s white, like the cliché of an afterlife, of limbo. Infinite space. At the center of it, the fox sits, tails curled around its paws. Stiles counts seven, eight, nine, shit, this one is powerful. And ancient. No wonder they can barely scratch it. 

In all this light, Stiles can actually make out features. It looks pleased. He snarls and attacks.

It evades almost lazily, flicking one of its tails at him. “Peace, fire kin. I have no intention of hurting you. Not of my own free will.”

Stiles snorts, earning himself a snap of teeth. Teeth that are, if he’s not completely mistaken, still embedded in his arm, in reality. 

“I have no quarrel with dragon kind. Release me from the darach’s binding and I’ll-“

Pain. Up his left side, lancing from his hip up to his ribs. Peter in front of him, heaving, snarling. His arm’s bleeding and under the blood, healing. Peter ripped the nogitsune off Stiles, severing the connection. 

Shit. 

He opens his mouth to tell them to let it through, to let it at him again, but his gaze accidentally lands on Deaton just in time to reign it in. Instead he rolls out of the way, one hand clutching at his shredded arm, giving it a beat to heal. 

Scott is there, suddenly, dragging him backwards, away from where Alli is whaling on the fox while Isaac tries to get at its neck. It keeps batting them around like playthings. 

Or rather, Stiles realizes, like it doesn’t really feel like killing them because they could free it instead. 

“Dude,” Scott hisses as he pries Stiles’ hand away from his arm, “that looks bad.”

Stiles gives a snarl of his own and shakes the arm loose, shedding some of the blood caking on it. Underneath, the wound is already closing. Flesh wounds always go quicker than anything else. In a few hours, it’ll be gone completely. If they all live that long. “I’ll be fine, Scotty. Just stay out of the way.”

Scott rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’m not stupid enough to get in the middle of a supernatural grudge match.”

He’s saying that way too calmly. Almost like, “Dude! You knew!”

This time, Scott laughs. Then winces as Peter takes a hit. “You and Lydia were not subtle.”

Then they both duck as Alli’s weapon goes flying over their heads and right, maybe this isn’t the best place for this conversation. Stiles rolls to his knees, tests his arm and extends his claws again. Then, at the last second he remembers, “Try to get closer to Deaton? I might need you to do a thing.”

Then he snarls his way back into the fight, fully intending to get himself bitten again without giving away that that’s what he’s doing.

His life. What even. 

The pack is still harassing the fox, but a blind man could see they’re not making any progress. The thing is too old, too powerful and most of all, too wily for them. Especially with their more human inclined members unarmed. They know nothing of how to fight kitsune, and armed with only fangs and claws this battle isn’t going the way they want it to. 

Stiles slides back into the fight with a low kick and a quick twist, rolls over Isaac’s back as he crouches and lands between Lydia and the nogitsune in time to take another bite to the arm, only Alli is there, kicking it in the side, off course. Stiles curses, lunges clumsily after it. 

It causes a stutter in the fight, because they’ve been fighting together for years, his pack, and they _know_ Stiles, know the way he fights, especially after he discovered he had claws too and spent hours annoying Peter and Isaac into sparring with him. 

Clumsy lunges are not something Stiles _does_ anymore.

Nevermind. Teeth.

Whiteness. This time he blinks it away quickly. “How?”

“Talisman. Anchor, on his neck. You have to – “

Aaaaand gone again. The fox yowls as Alli curb stomps its ribs and Stiles manages to tackle her in time to avoid a bite to the ankle that’d take her months to recover from. 

Incidentally, it sends them closer to Deaton. And Scott, who is carefully circling the fight, ostensibly looking for an opening, but really sneaking up on the vet and Stiles might need to revise his opinion on Scott, because that’s downright _sneaky_. 

He hauls Alli to her feet and into his chest, side-stepping Isaac’s next strafing run to mutter, “Deaton has an amulet around his neck. Tell Scott to get it.”

Then he calls loudly, “Scott, catch!” and shoves Alli at him. She’s quick, as always, fakes a stumble, some injury to her leg, and lets Scott catch her. He can see her mouth moving before the maneuver’s finished and Stiles turns back to the fight, for now.

Finds himself shoulder to shoulder with Peter, who smirks around his fangs, motions with one hand, “After you, my dear.”

Too playful for a real fight. But then, they all noticed Stiles’ clumsy tackle and they definitely noticed that he hasn’t conjured fire yet to burn the nogitsune to death. They may not understand the game yet, but they’re taking their cues from him and he adores them for it.

He leaps, Peter follows, and this probably looks hilarious from the outsides, all of them jumping the fox time and again, getting thrown off, trying again. Someone should be dead by now, or have changed their strategy. 

Stiles gives them maybe a minute more before Deaton catches on that there’s something off, or simply tires of this mess. 

Fortunately, it doesn’t come to that. 

Instead a sudden cry rises up behind them, Alli riding Deaton to the ground even as he calls for the fox, Scott grappling with him and there’s a glint of something, and Stiles can’t really _see_ it, but he can _feel_ the anchor for the binding spell as it’s exposed. 

He rolls away from the fight as Scott gets free of Deaton. He sits up, hauls back and throws the amulet at the same moment the fox leaps for Alli, teeth bared. 

Stiles catches it and has a split second of panic because _what the fuck is he supposed to do with it now_ , but if it’s an anchor then it’s probably as simple as – 

He smashes it into the ground as hard as he can, hard enough to feel the shock of it all the way up his arm and it breaks with a flash of light and a wave of power and the nogitsune lands like some giant hand ripped it out of the air, half on top of Alli, half beside her, fangs a scant inch from ripping out her throat. 

Isaac shouts, Lydia screeches, Peter snarls, Scott yelps and Stiles can _feel it_ , behind the back of his teeth, in his bones, he can feel the shift in power, the energy spilling out, the chains that would have bound him too, breaking. 

The nogitsune stops. 

For the first time since he appeared, Deaton seems less than perfectly serene. For the first time, there is emotion in him. And it’s fear. Fear mixed with shock as he stumbles to his feet, away from Scott’s vain attempt to hold him, gaze flitting between fox demon and dragon.

“You - what have you done? What have you done, you stupid children! What have you – I was only trying to keep the balance, I would have – “

Whatever he would have done will forever remain a mystery, because the nogitsune uses Alli as a spring board and lands, teeth first on Deaton’s chest, riding him to the ground in a shower of blood and screams. 

It’s not fast. And it’s not painless. 

Scott catches only a glimpse of it before he whirls away and starts throwing up. Isaac only has eyes for Alli and Lyds goes to comfort their old friend. Peter watches the fox rip and rend with something akin to hunger in his blue, blue eyes.

Stiles just wants to make sure Deaton is really, really dead. 

When it’s over, the nogitsune sits back, licks its chops and then turns toStiles, slinking toward him.

Peter growls, already stepping between them, but Stiles stops him with a gentle shove to one shoulder. He crouches down. It’s both a defensive position and one that lets him meet the fox’ eyes head-on. 

“Thank you, little fire,” the fox purrs, its real voice a soft, susurrus sound. Seductive. 

“You’re welcome,” Stiles answers.

“I owe you a boon for my freedom.” It cocks its head, gives a little laugh. It’s entirely human, coming from a mouth that’s the opposite. Disturbing. “Call on me, and I’ll deliver. One thing I’ll give you for free, though.”

Stiles, who has treated with the fae, knows better than to accept an offer like that blindly. “Why?”

The fox shifts its head again and Stiles gets a sudden impression of a human face, swathed in bandages. Of the white room. Of a tree. Of his own face, staring back at him, haggard and haunted. 

“Elsewhen,” the creature drawls, sounding almost fond, “I die wearing your face. That makes us brothers, you and I. Fire and shadow and all the things that never came to pass, here.”

Stiles blinks. He’s vaguely aware of the others gathering behind and around him, but none of them speak. “Are you talking parallel universes?”

Again, that human laugh. “Clever thing. You’re wasted on the fire kin, better suited for a fox.”

This time, Stiles is the one who laughs. “Don’t you read? Us dragons are plenty tricky, when we want to be.”

“You set a trap for your enemy,” the fox allows. It sounds like a concession. 

But before it gets too cozy, it stands suddenly, ears perking at some unheard sound. “Here’s my gift to you, never-brother: the darach wasn’t working alone.”

And then it’s gone, like smoke on a windy day, shadows blown apart and out of sight in a heartbeat. 

Stiles lands on his ass on the cold concrete. Hard. Every bone in his body hurts and his arm throbs with every heartbeat. 

“Well, that was shit.”

“I found it invigorating,” Peter declares, because he’s a homicidal fucking maniac. In fact, Isaac, curling himself around Alli, says exactly that. 

Peter flicks him off with a claw-tipped finger. 

Scott makes a little chortling noise and Lydia, dropping down next to Stiles, pulls him after and starts introducing him around. 

When they finally get to Peter, Scott grins and says, “Hey, I did get to meet you after all. Nice!”

Peter shoots Stiles a look that seriously questions his friend’s sanity. Stiles just waves him off and leans into his partner’s chest, suddenly too tired to move. 

Lydia hands him a piece of white cloth that looks like it may have started life as a tablecloth on a certain altar in the far corner. “You’re bloody all over,” is all she says.

Stiles dutifully starts working the blood off his hands and forearms, idly asking, “When did you get that?”

She flaps a hand toward the corner Deaton appeared from. “You were busy watching Deaton get torn to shreds. Since he wasn’t going to need it for the binding anymore….” She shrugs prosaically. Pragmatism, thy name is Lydia. 

Stiles passes the rag on to Peter, who then passes it off to Isaac. “Yeah, what the fuck is up with that anyway? Deaton freaked me the fuck out.”

“He was acting very strange,” Lydia agrees, because she’s the queen of understating things. 

“His story was full of holes. None of that shit made sense,” Isaac adds his two cents, folding the rag and shoving it under his butt. Delicate flower. 

“No wonder we didn’t figure him out,” Alli agrees, snuggling deeper into his chest. They’re all touching in some way, just sitting there, in the middle of the carnage, coming down _hard_. Whatever Deaton used to knock them out lingers. 

Alli is in Isaac’s lap, her legs pressed up against Peter’s side, his arm slung over her knees. Stiles is propped against Peter’s front, his legs tangled with Lydia’s, who is leaning lightly into Scott’s side. 

“Wait? I thought you knew it was him?” Scott demands. He’s giving them all kinds of weird looks. Then he apparently decides to fuck it, because he scooches closer until he and Lydia are practically molded together. 

Snorts all around. “Yeah, no. We had no clue. We just knew it had to be someone from good old BH and that they were trying to bait us, because like I said, Duke didn’t reach out. Intent. The rest was just us, stabbing at shit in the dark and hoping we’d stir something up.”

Scott gets wide-eyed. “But the stuff you said, about, like, magic?”

“This shit ain’t Harry Potter. No such thing as a Notice-Me-Not charm. I just made it up to keep him talking. Alli’s our resident escape artist. Duct tape usually takes her four minutes. Seven if she has to be quiet. Wiggle room makes ten. Ten minutes of keeping him distracted. Worked, didn’t it?”

“So you had a plan?” Scott tries to clarify. He actually sounds relieved.

“Nope. Improv all the way, dude.”

“You people are insane!”

“Nah. Just really durable and good at working off each other.”

“Can we get back to Deaton and his holey story?” Isaac interrupts. “Because if the creep wanted you since you were a teenager, why the fuck didn’t he take you ages ago? You come here regularly and usually without an entourage. Hell, he could have asked your dad or Scott where you were and found you there. Even better. And why send Deucalion? He was way too dangerous to be simple bait. If we’d been a little later, you might have been dead.”

“Maybe he didn’t have the means to trap Stiles before,” Alli suggests, nose scrunched up. She doesn’t sound convinced.

Scott shakes his head. “Dude, I don’t think he wanted you like that in high school. When you guys left, he was bummed out, yeah, but nothing like _this_.” He points at the carnage but very carefully doesn’t look. 

“And then, one day, he just decided to bind Stiles to him forever and designed a convoluted fuck-up of a plan to go about it?” Lydia sounds less than impressed. 

Stiles shrugs. “You gotta admit, that Deaton was crazy cakes. Coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs, LaLa, gone to the market, completely fucking _deranged_.”

There’s a beat of silence as they contemplate that. Isaac pulls a face. “There is that. And your new, creepy-as-fuck friend did say he wasn’t working alone. What if the other party isn’t a partner so much as….”

“Another puppeteer,” Peter completes, his arm tightening around Stiles’ waist. 

Stiles groans. “It’s like one of those fucking Russian dolls. Only instead of more dolls, you get more homicidal fuckers after my head. Or, like, a quest or some shit, where you have to defeat all kinds of evil before you get to the final boss fight.”

“I think that’s video games, bro,” Scott corrects.

“If anyone starts asking me riddles or dudes in black cloaks start showing up, I’m out of here. Just saying.”

But seriously, kidding aside, this is starting to make him paranoid. More paranoid. It’s the second time someone has set a trap specifically for him, because of his heritage and bloodline. And apparently, there’s someone else, lurking in the shadows. None of this makes sense. Why now? Why here? Why Deaton? And what’s so special about Stiles, apart from being a nearly extinct species? And what the hell triggered Deaton into the quiet psychosis they just witnessed?

Lyds rolls her eyes at him. Turns to Scott. “You are taking all of this way too well. Spill.”

Subject apparently changed. They’ll get back to it when they aren’t all stupid with exhaustion and hurt, but for now, Scott interests her more, apparently.

Scott shrugs. “Like I told Stiles. You two weren’t that subtle in high school. You talked about shit like magic and monsters and druids and stopped mid-sentence when I came in. Eventually, I found some stuff at Deaton’s and just asked him about it.”

“And you never said?!”

Another shrug. “You two were always protecting me, because of my asthma, because I was a little slow and naïve sometimes. I figured you would tell me when you were ready and until then, you were just trying to keep me out of it for my own safety.”

Stiles really, really owes Scott an apology. A big one. He always thought Scott was just too lazy, or maybe too dumb to notice. And, yeah, that he needed to be protected from it. That he wouldn’t be able to deal. He was wrong. He was, it seems, very wrong. “That’s why you never complained when we hightailed out of here.”

“I knew the whole supernatural stuff had something to do with it. I would have only slowed you down.”

A moment later, Scott hits the concrete, Stiles on top of him, Lydia sandwiched between them in the kind of threeway hug they haven’t had in a decade. 

“Sorry,” Stiles mutters, echoed by Lydia. “We were shit friends.”

“It’s okay. You had your reasons. And, I mean, most of the weird stuff stopped when you left. It’s rare that something happens now, and when it does, Parrish usually deals with it. So really, you did protect me by leaving. You protected the whole town.”

Which is another interesting thing, but not tonight. God, Stiles is tired. So he focuses on the other thing. “Parrish?”- that’s one of the other deputies. 

“He’s not quite human, even though he says he doesn’t know what he is, either. I cover for him sometimes. And don’t worry, we kept your dad out of it. And.. uhm… I think Kira might be something? I haven’t figured out a way to ask her, yet.”

“You’re amazing,” Stiles breathes. 

Scott blushes.

“As adorable as this is,” Peter cuts in dryly, “maybe we could clean up the murder scene and find some beds? Some of us have been tortured tonight.”

Isaac gives an agreeing whimper. The baby. 

+

A little magic and a little willpower leave the warehouse free of any trace evidence of the six of them, without disrupting anything else. Let the cops brood over the madness for a while. Scott sighs when Stiles says it, but doesn’t argue. He’s already agreed to keep mum about all of this. His head wound is going to get blamed on the shower. 

“And, hey, maybe going missing for half a night finally gives me the opening I need to ask Kira what she is!” Optimistic puppy. Stiles didn’t realize how much he missed him. 

Once outside, they figure out they’re not far from the vet clinic. Practically Deaton’ backyard. 

“Good. I need to get my car anyway,” Scott comments. “It’s at the clinic.”

“What? Why?”

That gets a patented Scott McCall blush and shuffle. “I may have thought about what you said at lunch and maybe I remembered Deaton asking a few questions last year? And maybe I went to confront him after the end of my shift? Alone?”

It’s almost comforting to know the bumbling idiot from their school days is still inside this new Scott, somewhere. 

“Well,” Lydia shrugs it off. “It probably forced him to step up his time table, saving us days of tedious poking around. So thank you.”

“Welcome?”

Stiles shakes his head. At this point, they’re all beyond punch drunk and stupid. “Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

+

A little less than twelve hours later finds Stiles clean, asleep and happily wrapped up in Peter.

Right up until someone knocks on the door of his childhood bedroom. He blinks open one bleary eye just as his dad sticks his head in. 

Quickly, he pats down the blankets around them. Not for nudity but because he had broken ribs last night and he’s pretty sure the bruising’s still visible. He does not need his dad thinking… whatever those bruises might make him think. Also, his left arm, hidden under the sheets, still looks pretty mangled.

“Hey, daddy-o. What’s up?”

The customary greeting doesn’t get the usual response. Instead the Sheriff takes a long look at both his son and his partner, then says, “Can you meet me downstairs?”

“What? Yeah, sure. Give us five?”

A nod.

The door closes. 

“There’s a second heartbeat downstairs,” Peter murmurs, quietly. 

Stiles feels a weight settle in his stomach. “Come on,” he says. 

They dress in jeans and t-shirts (hoodie for Stiles to cover his arm), phones and keys on them, brush their teeth. Head downstairs. 

His dad is sitting at the kitchen table. One of his deputies is leaning against the sink. His nametag says Parrish. 

“Guys? What’s going on?” 

“Sit down, son,” the Sheriff says.

“Rather stand, actually. Dad?”

Peter’s a warm presence at his back, steady.

“Son, I….” he trails off. 

It’s Parrish, taking a step forward, who finally says it. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stilinski, but you’re under arrest for multiple counts of murder.”

“What?” It’s not the most original reaction, but it’s better than the alternative, which is a loud and confused, _multiple?_ , because the last time he checked, only Deaton died last night.

His dad looks ashen. Peter is growling low in his throat. Parrish is holding up handcuffs. 

“Please come quietly.”

What. The. Fuck. 

+

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment below.


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